Marvel Live Action

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I was expecting more from her but she suffers from the same problems that most MCU villains do. In the end she just felt more like an antagonist than an actual character. To be fair, though, this was really more about having an excuse for The Defenders to come together, but getting an actress as high-profile as Sigourney Weaver really raises one's expectations.

On the brighter side of things, I really did enjoy seeing the core characters interacting with each other. Danny Rand was certainly a lot more tolerable playing off of the other heroes, especially Luke Cage.

[gunswordfist]

The Defenders was pretty damn fun! My only complaints are Alexandra was just evil, humorless Hogarth and I can't wrap my head around what Electra's intentions were.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

To add to that, I'm also not a fan of how they continued Danny's streak of being a moron. Like, I know that they are only feeding into what everyone already thinks of him from season one of Iron Fist, but I'd like to instead see them try and improve the character by making him learn from past mistakes instead of subjecting us to more of his stupid shenanigans. Like, when he was fighting Elektra and she needed him to activate his Iron Fist in order to use it as a key and couldn't kill him until he did that, literally all he had to do was not summon his Chi. Hell, he didn't even have to fight her, but even if he did he could just stick to normal martial arts like he started out doing and not actually summon the power in his fist that she could use to potentially destroy all of New York City. Even if he was getting his ass kicked he still couldn't be killed by her since she needed him alive, and he could have simply stalled her until help arrived. But, nope, he's just got to be as rash as ever and activate the one thing that he has complete control over and can also be used by the villains to achieve their goal. It's the kind of stupid that's incredibly frustrating to deal with as a viewer as opposed to being part of a well-written character arc.

Gripes like that aside, though, this was a lot of fun. It's not as good of a first time team-up as The Avengers was, but it does showcase how well these characters and their actors can play off of one another. In that regard, we can wait a few years before the next season of Defenders, and in the meantime it would be cool if each of these characters could have guest appearances in each others' shows, like Matt Murdock dropping by in an episode of Jessica Jones to help her solve a case, or Danny Rand teaming up with Luke Cage on a certain mission that ends up being a neat little homage to Heroes for Hire. That would be pretty cool to see, and would be quite reminiscent of what one would expect from an actual comic book involving any of these characters.

[Avaitor]

The show is sounding good, but I've had no real desire to connect to Netflix here to check it out. I probably won't get to that until BoJack Horseman starts back up.

I do wish that they could have taken the chance to improve on Danny's character rather than doubling down his worst traits, though. That sounds frustrating, and will only make Iron Fist feel like less of an afterthought than it should be.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

For what it's worth, his interactions with Luke Cage in this season were legitimately fun moments, and temporarily made you forget how annoying he could be. It was like Danny was a completely different character in those scenes. As in, a character that you actually want to watch, instead of one who actively infuriates you.

[Avaitor]

That sounds good.

I think Iron Fist worked best somewhere around the middle-to-late portion of its run, when Colleen and Claire join and share good chemistry with each other. Danny worked a little better there as well, but it was their show IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Interestingly, Colleen featured a lot more prominently in this season than I expected. In fact, she arguably has the biggest role of any of the supporting characters, even more so than Claire, which took me by surprise. Thankfully, being arguably the only character from Iron Fist that worked, she wasn't a hindrance in this show.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, Colleen was definitely the Pink Ranger of the team.

[Foggle]

Checked out the first episode of Defenders. I enjoyed it, but I can't say it gripped me like the first episodes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, or Luke Cage did (I know a lot of people weren't big on any of the premieres, but I really enjoyed them). The scenes with Jessica were great and despite dragging a bit at times I thought the scenes with Matt were too. Luke wasn't bad but I felt his scenes lacked some of the authenticity from his own series. Seems like I didn't miss much by skipping Iron Fist. The villain (whose name I do not know) already seems quite a bit weaker than Fisk, Kilgrave, Cottonmouth, Punisher, etc. but I'll wait and give her a chance. Overall, definitely interested in checking out the second episode tomorrow, but not quite as excited as I hoped I would be.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Prepare to be Punished: https://youtu.be/lIY6zFL95hE

I'm not going to lie, the Marvel Netflix shows have undergone a serious downward spiral in quality by making the same mistakes as the Berlanti DC shows (ironically enough) by stretching their resources too thin and producing too many shows at once in close proximity to each other in favor of quantity over quality. While The Defenders isn't anywhere near as bad as Iron Fist, it still shows signs of being rushed in its production just so that Netflix could have their "Avengers" show without gradually building up to it and earning it like the movies did. It really shows with how sloppy the writing was and how much lower the quality felt than what we're used to seeing from the show runner of Daredevil. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the issues from these later shows came from the creative development period of these shows being severely limited in order to meet a release deadline, as it's easier to believe that than something like the writers of a show like Daredevil suddenly sucking at what they've proven that they could do extremely well before.

That said, I also have to admit that The Punisher still has me at least somewhat interested since The Punisher arc from season two of Daredevil is easily the high point of the entire Netflix MCU, and this show has the benefit of having a mostly clean slate and being largely separate from the rest of the Marvel Netflix shows in terms of both its content and cast.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'm interested in how it seems to be a mish-mash of several Punisher eras. Like it will apparently do some of the darker comics like The Slavers, but include Micro and the Frankmobile.

[Avaitor]

I don't know how well that'll work, but I'm still very curious.

I'll probably still be keeping up with the Netflix shows unless we get a couple more Iron Fists, anyway.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I watched the Inhumans pilot for a laugh, and my God, that was bad in every way possible. Lame music for the soundtrack, actors who look constipated in every scene (especially Black Bolt and Karnak), a villain who makes so much of a good case for why the Inhumans are shit that you're wondering why he's the villain, and the goofiest ways they showed off their powers.

Ever since Marvel has pushed Inhumans as the new mutants, I keep thinking "Why?" People like the X-Men because they're misfit underdogs who are given shit by society, have powers that hinder their life as much as it helps, and have complex, troubled lives, yet they try their best to do good regardless. While the Inhumans are weird moon royalty who still believe in eugenics and slavery. Why would anyone root for people like that over the likes of Cyclops and Wolverine?

[Daikun]

Marvel originals are moving from Netflix to Disney's new streaming platform.

[Rynnec]

This won't end well